Henry Fonda Movies

Want to know the best Henry Fonda movies?  How about the worst Henry Fonda movies?  Curious about Henry Fonda’s box office grosses or which Henry Fonda movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Henry Fonda movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which got the worst? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.

Whew!….After almost two months I have finally finished my Henry Fonda movie page.  Before getting to his massive 83 movie table…let’s look at some possibly interesting facts about his life.

1. Henry Fonda (1905-1982) was born in Grand Island, Nebraska. One of his first acting jobs was with the Omaha Community Playhouse. One of his fellow actors was Dodie Brando, the mother of screen legend Marlon Brando. He attended the University of Minnesota, but dropped out, and headed to Cape Cod and New York seeking stage work.

2. After eight years of stage acting, Fonda appeared in his first movie, 1936’s The Farmer Takes A Wife. He did not have to wait long for a box office hit. As Trail of the Lonesome Pine  (his 4th movie) was the 4th biggest hit of 1936. Fonda would appear in 114 movie and television projects over the next 46 years.

3. During his days as a struggling actor, his roommate was another struggling actor, James Stewart. After Fonda had moved to Hollywood, he encouraged Stewart to take a screen test. The result of the screen test earned Stewart his first movie contract and a move to Hollywood. They would remain lifelong friends and appear in 4 movies together over the years.

4. After starring in 40 movies from 1935 to 1948, Fonda left Hollywood for seven years to return to the stage. His greatest success on stage is the movie that brought him back to making movies in 1955. That movie was the classic film…..Mister Roberts.

5. Henry Fonda was married 5 times in his life. He had three children;….daughter Jane Fonda (two time Oscar® winning actress), son Peter Fonda (Oscar® nominated actor) and daughter Amy. His granddaughter, Bridget Fonda, is also an actress. The three generations of Fonda actors have 301 acting credits on IMDB.

His IMDb page shows 115 acting credits from 1935-1981. This page will rank 83 Henry Fonda movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows, shorts, cameos and movies that were not released in theaters were not included in the rankings.

Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn in 1981's On Golden Pond
Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn in 1981’s On Golden Pond

Henry Fonda Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.

Henry Fonda Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table

The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.

  • Sort Henry Fonda movies by the co-stars of his movies
  • Sort Henry Fonda movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Henry Fonda movies by actual domestic box office rank by year
  • Sort Henry Fonda movies how they were received by critics and audiences.  60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
  • Sort by how many Oscar® nominations and how many Oscar® wins each Henry Fonda movie received.
  • Sort Henry Fonda movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score.  UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
Henry Fonda in 1968's Once Upon A Time in the West
Henry Fonda in 1968’s Once Upon A Time in the West

5 More Possibly Interesting Facts About Henry Fonda.

1. Surprisingly Henry Fonda was only nominated two times for an acting Oscar®. He received his first nomination for The Grapes of Wrath in 1940 then had to wait 41 years for his second nomination for On Golden Pond. The wait was worth it as he took home the Oscar® for On Golden Pond. Fonda did receive an Honorary Oscar® in 1981 and a producer’s nomination for 1957’s 12 Angry Men.

2. The American Film Institute named Henry Fonda as the 6th greatest actor on The 50 Greatest Screen Legends. In 2005 the U.S. Post Office issued a commemorative postage stamp to honor Fonda.

3. Henry Fonda worked with legendary director, John Ford, on 7 movies. Those movies were Drums Along the Mohawk, The Young Lincoln, The Grapes of Wrath, My Darling Clementine, The Fugitive, Fort Apache and Mister Roberts.

4. Did you know that the brown Fedora worn by Fonda in On Golden Pond belonged to Spencer Tracy and was given to Fonda by Katharine Hepburn on the first day on the set.

5. Check out Henry Fonda‘s career compared to current and classic actors.  Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.

Check Out Steve’s Henry Fonda You Tube Video

 
Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences.

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186 thoughts on “Henry Fonda Movies”

  2. BRUCE

    1 I have not seen anyone suggesting the autograph collections was for financial gain.

    2 I did see Flora saying that it was NOT for gain and I therefore told her that I admired the fact that she was not mercenary in that she had a great collection of autographs that she obviously treasured and had a high priority in retaining them.

    3 Another point of confusion – who or what is a spammer?

    Reply

    1. Hey Bob….thanks for the clarifications. The spammer is something happening at The Turner Classic Movies forum. My spam stopper does a great job of stopping spam….occasionally a few get through…..but 1000s get zapped and never make the page. Got Walter Pidgeon loaded and ready to go….should be published by tomorrow morning.

      Reply

    2. When Bruce made his Robert Montgomery page, something happened and he saw Chinese scralling on his database and his Wife fixed it.

      Reply

  3. Hey Flora and Rob……so I just got through reading your numerous comments….all very interesting and fun to read. Some my thoughts….(1) I will fix my Henry Ford error as soon as WoC gets through doing whatever she is currently doing with the database….. I am currently banished to my room with the iPad….lol. (2) interesting story about James Garner, Eva Marie Saint and Grand Prix. (3). I am confused about who was suggesting the autograph collection was for financial gain….as you said….they are for personal use only. (4). I am glad Flora is a strong supporter of the Fonda family….especially Peter. You guys are keeping the page on the trending leaders which means more people are checking out the page…..so thank you for your efforts.

    Reply

    1. The reference was from Robert Roy asking me how much my letter from Agatha Christie was worth and I said that I could not hazard a guess.

      There are actually people who line up outside of studios where stars are appearing to get them to sign autographs not for themselves, but dozens of photos they bring themselves for the stars to sign and then sell them for thousands of dollars. When people refused to do it, they get yelled at.

      Perhaps not important for men?

      But I would as a woman NOT want to hear a man screaming and swearing at me if I walked past them.

      Things in the internet world means everything can happen so fast.

      In the days of the Golden Age of Hollywood, the press would set up appointments like the one you see in Roman Holiday where the Audrey Hepburn character is, shall we say, surrounded by people who are overly protective. For good reason as she is the Princess of some unnamed country.

      Reply

      2. 1 I don’t think I actually asked how much the Christie letter was worth. I merely made the general observation that it must have been valuable and I was indirectly praising Flora for having such a great keepsake.

        2 I wasn’t asking Flora to sell me the letter !!! .

        Reply

        1. Hey Bob. (1) Got it. (2) Going to have a new section on the classic pages. It is going to list all the movies that saw the box office gross change during the current research. For the upcoming Pidgeon page there were 6 movies that saw their number change at least a little bit. And this time I am going to change all the pages before hitting the publish button….lol.

          Reply

  4. Another great example of your site Bruce:

    WE have no private messages like there are on TCM forums.

    Also:
    There are a Huge number of people including myself who get notifications overnight from spammers who are then banned.

    AS such, one of the most popular threads on the site is “We Have Been Visited By The Spam Fairy”

    A Man on that site named Kid Daab tries to interpret said spam.

    To make this a reference to another Henry – a song by Herman’s Hermets:

    sung by the lead singer who is NOt named Herman, but Peter Noone:

    These are the real lyrics:

    I’m Henry the eighth I am
    Henry the 8th I am I am
    I got married to the widow next door
    She’s been married seven times before
    And everyone was a Henry
    She wouldn’t have a Willy or a Sam
    I’m the eighth old man
    I’m Henry
    Henry the Eighth I am am
    Henry the Eighth I am.

    New lyrics:

    I’m spammer the eighth I am
    Spammer the eighth I am I am
    I spammed TCM about the widow next door
    TCM has been spammed many times before
    And all of us who are spammers
    WE would spam a Willie and a Sam
    I’m the 8,000th spammer , I’m Spammy
    Spammy the 8th I am I am
    Spammy the 8,000,000th I am.

    This is the biggest problem with the

    Reply

  5. FLORA:

    1 I admire you for your principles in not selling what in many cases could be priceless autographs.

    2 I had a friend once whose hobby was home wine-making and there is some home wine that can actually be made from a certain type of garden weed.

    3 I had another friend who had a garden full of such weeds and the first friend asked him for some of those weeds for his wine-making. The second friend replies “Give me £5 for them all!”

    BOBBY

    Reply

    1. FLORA
      1 Appreciate that everybody is different but my point was that YOU have fine priorities other than money.

      2 I understand that for a time Jane and Henry were somewhat estranged. One of the reasons might have been reports that although he believed in Liberal projects Jane annoyed him by adopting a higher profile in her opposition to the Vietnam War than he would have liked.

      3 As Bruce mentions Henry realised that it was not worth falling out with his pal Jimmy Stewart over politics so maybe he should have given Jane the same bye. Great though that Jane/Peter are aware of you. Do you know if they get on well these days?

      4 Am surprised that Shatner’s Lucy in the Sky was serious. It was so ‘unmusical’ that I always thought of it as a spoof. Indeed some music critics seem to feel that the jury’s still out on that one.

      5 Anyway you seem to be in great writing form now. Bruce’s return must have again awakened the creative animal in you!

      BOBBY

      Reply

      1. SONGS BY WILLIAM SHATNER ON THAT CD: “Sung”

        (Besides him recited Shakespearean dialogue to music like to Be or Not to Be from Hamlet):

        In order:

        Mr. Tambourine Man (Dylan)
        It Was A Very Good Year (Sinatra)
        Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (Beatles)
        How Insensitive (read more like a poem and therefore not singing and like the HAmlet song)

        Leonard Nimoy decided to take part in various Spock like singing and speaking as he was told that it would have his photo on it anyway, so he thought he would participate in the project.

        Reply

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